Choose what you mirror

When faced with the behaviours of others, whether positive or negative, we each have a choice. Do we mirror it and keep the cycle going? Or break the cycle?

Seven common barriers to asking for help

There are many challenges that sometimes feel impossible to voice, let alone reach out to someone for help. But why do we sometimes find it impossible to reach out and ask? Find out how unfounded seven common fears around asking for help really can be.

Fresh starts

We all have pasts. Some of them happy, some tragic, most a mixture of the two. If you have read any of my previous blogs you will know that I am a great believer in the power of getting to grips with that past so that we can learn from it. But there comes a […]

The importance of being grateful

There is much made of the importance of gratitude to happiness. Yet there is also a temptation to dismiss ‘being grateful’ as unwarranted, particularly when we are feeling hard done by. The phrase is too often used to mean being beholden. It is too often used by people who tell us we ‘should be grateful’ […]

THE FIVE DAY SELF HELP ROUTINE

Monday look after your body Tuesday see to your dreams Wednesday tidy your memories Thursday tend to your soul Friday look to the future Embracing the changes life brings Facing the worlds tribulations With fresh eyes Determination And hope

Coming to terms with our past

I am a great believer in the art of navel gazing. I’ve had a bit of a rocky relationship with it over the years, but at nearly 50 (sshh!), I think that maybe I am finally getting the hang of it. So much of each of us is buried, either in our past, or in […]

Growth is a painful process

There is a reason shit happens to us or to our loved ones. I have no idea what it is and I would much rather it did not. But out of the pain comes growth. Creativity. Re-birth. Wisdom. Peace. Until the next pile hits the fan when the cycle begins again. Maybe the Buddhists are […]

A sunny winters day

A little while ago at the end of February, I was standing at my back door looking out at my garden and looking forward to summer. Unusually for February in Scotland, it was warm and sunny. Very warm and sunny. So warm and sunny that I later picked my son up from school in sunglasses […]

Darkness and Light

Life is all about balance. We can, to some extent, learn to balance our needs and responsibilities, other peoples priorities and our own, being healthy with allowing ourselves some treats. But there is a higher level of balance in our lives that we cannot alway control. Things just happen. Some bad, some good. A universal […]

Resentment

I’ve recently come to realise exactly how tricky an emotion resentment is. It starts small. An irritation at a real or inferred promise not kept. A perceived unfairness where someone gets something that you do not. Over time it gathers more ‘stuff’to itself, a slight here, a small or large problem there. It grows, below […]